Seven members of Rada of Belarusian Intelligentsia apply for release of Catholic priest Uladzislaw Lazar
Seven members of the Rada (Council) of the Belarusian
Intelligentsia have applied for the release of arrested Roman Catholic
priest Uladzislaw Lazar against their personal guarantees that he would
not flee from prosecution.
The applicants include poet
Anatol Vyartsinski, scholar Uladzimir Kolas, former television announcer
Zinaida Bandarenka, translator Lyavon Barshchewski, journalists
Alyaksey Karol and Anatol Hulyayew, and former lawmaker Valery Fralow.
They
ask the Committee for State Security (KGB) to release Mr. Lazar on his
own recognizance if he authorizes them to act as his sureties.
The
applicants say that the KGB should take into account the nature of Mr.
Lazar's alleged offense, his personality, age, health condition and
occupation, among other things.
Alyaksandr Lukashenka revealed
on July 26 that authorities had recently arrested an officer of a
Belarusian intelligence agency who had supplied information to “foreign
states” through representatives of the Catholic Church.
The
private weekly Nasha Niva reported the following day that Uladzislaw
Lazar, minister of the Holy Spirit Descension Parish in Barysaw, Minsk
region, was being held in the KGB jail.
Authorities have repeatedly refused to release any information regarding the Rev. Lazar's case.
